No.. I will budget for $25k and that way I will spend $29k lol

One place I will not skimp is on the wheels.. wheels make the car and someone wants steelies then they can duplicate the car even cheaper. lol

My goal is not to build a rat rod. :yes:

Call it "Bad Pony". 3 shades of Black and all business,"Bad Business".JMO

Steve,

You're right that $15k won't cut it, but I really think $20k will. I actually have less than $15k in mine right now and get all kinds of thumbs up's when I'm out driving it. It's not perfect by any means, has a little rust and a wee bit of primer, but it still looks really good. I have to respectfully disagree that $30k is an "average joe" budget. Maybe it's because of the area of the country I live in that shapes my opinion (Georgia BTW). Or maybe it's because I bought mine at a really good deal (from my brother) to keep it in the family, so maybe that has skewed my opinion as well. In your defense (I'm not much of a debater am I??) I have to remember that 67-69 Camaros are getting to the point that the car purchase by itself would break most average joe's budgets. Thanks for the comments. I'm sure you are right - $30k is much more doable with new parts.

Good luck with your build. I am sure I will enjoy tracking it start to finish.

(edit - flow of my post didn't look right - had to fix it!)

GeoffP
68 Camaro LT1/T-56 4.11 (soon to have the FIRST set of 12.19 Wilwood 6 piston brakes)
87 Camaro IROC-Z LT1/4L60E 3.23

Putting a carb on a Gen III ruins all the fun of having one of these engines in my opinion. And besides, it's expensive too. Car Craft just did a story on a 5.3 build and they converted it to a carb. Cost them $1116 to do it. Stupid. And unnecessary too.

Why would you say something like that? :question: I picked up a brand new 5.3 (2 of them) it did not come with a fuel injection setup! I have the carb and I'm going to buy the Edelbrock setup for $650 ~ $700 how much more will FI run me? Minimum would be $2,500 to buy an off the shelf setup...

Some of the motor guys I've talked to state the carb will provide better power over the FI and still have great mileage. There are pro's and cons to both. I love FI, but not in my plans at the moment! I read some articles on a Carbed LS2 a while back and it produced better results than FI. It is all in what you are looking for and what your budget can handle.

Nope.. you could have bought a used LS1 intake and fuel rail for a couple hundred bucks. Most LSx engines you buy from salvage yards will come with all the stuff you need and then you just need to rework the harness and flash the ECU.

Is that 650-700 for the carb set up counting the Carb, Intake, Electronics, and Harness? Everytime I add it up I get at least $1000... :shrug:

Then you have to tune the carb.. and if you change big altitude you have to re-tune the carb.. If carbs are so great then why don't new cars run them anymore? lol

And while I do agree that a carbed LS motor will make more power it's at the sacrafice of drivability and fuel economy. :)

The REAL cost of doing a carb:

GMPP carb intake 88958675 Scoggin-Dickey $369.75
Fel-Pro intake gasket 1312-1 Summit Racing $22.69
Fel-Pro header gasket 1438 Summit Racing $26.36
MSD ignition conversion 6010 Summit Racing $312.70
MSD extension harness 60101 Summit Racing $184.10
Carb, Holley 750 0-4779 0-4779C $415.95


Most likely I will do both and show which one makes more power and which one costs more.. sort of a shoot-out with myself. lol

I have the Carb, The link below is for the Edelbrock setup with harness and controls the coil packs. $699 (709.99 shipped) I'll still need the gaskets. If you were to buy a FI setup off the shelf! you would pay in excess of $2,500. Even one out of a salvage yard would be more than a couple hundred bucks. I didn't buy from a salvage yard so I didn't get all the extras. The 5.3's I picked up have Zero miles on them. I have no harness, manifold, injectors, MAF, fuel rails and so on... I thought the carb would be the budget way to go! If you can hook me up with a FI setup under $700 I would go that way, but I've not found anything that is in that range. I'm definitely going to look as I would love to be Fuel Injected over a Carb.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/EDELB...spagenameZWD1V


This is how I received my motor!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/3...6e46a0c1_o.jpg

This is with the Edelbrock setup

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/3...06871c1d83.jpg

it is very clean and from what I'm told very streetable. If you can point me in the direction of a FI system that would be the same price I would go that way. Thanks for the info I look forward to finding a budget FI system....

Just because you have a carb doesn't mean that cost shouldn't be factored in. :) -- if someone want's the Carb deal it's $1,000..

And there's no need for an "off the shelf" EFI deal.. used GM stuff is perfectly fine.

And the carb deal is cool, I have nothing against it. I just want to point out that it's not the dirt-cheap option to the "unaffordable" EFI.

Really :)

Oh, and in your case you were at a bit of disadvantage since your engine came without any EFI stuff.

BUT... a used GM intake and TB is cheap.. as is a fuel rail. They you need a cheap Vette regulator/filter deal and some mods to a stock fuel tank. Lastly you need an OEM harness (again, from a scrap yard). You can mod it yourself with enough effort or pay $400 to have it done. They have the ECU flashed.

Done..

Or go with the cheap MEFI4 option like Turn Key offers.. 5 wires and you're golden. I bet I could put EFI on your long block for $1000... maybe $1,000.

But I have to admit... the carb deal looks very cool. :yes:

Thanks Steve, I'm giving it some thought. I picked up 2 of the 5.3 motors for what I had paid for an LS2 that never materialized. I still had some change, but not enough to buy new EFI setup. The carb setup looked less expensive. Since my post earlier today. I have found an LS1 intake setup going for $150 - $400 on ebay also found a harness at $465 an ECU at $100 so it could be possible to do something for around $1,200 ~ $1,500 with a used intake. I will keep an eye out for the parts as I've not comitted anything to a carb. I have to look at the write up Tony was talking about.

I would also like to know why GM would put a Carb version of the LS2 out if there wasn't something to it.

I love the BOSSEFI approach, but again $2,700 for just the carb/FI setup. I love the look of the Victor Jr. intake on the LS motor.

Anyway I'll follow your build no matter which way you go with it. I'll be putting the first 5.3 in my 80 Camaro this summer and decide if the other will go in my 67. I'll start a post on the parts I come across for the 80 project and we'll see how it comes out.